It just ain't living
by Bluebrick
Summary: Dan is a teenager living with cancer who truly believes he has nothing to live for but when he meets a black haired boy with problems of his own, he realises maybe there's a reason to win this battle.


I could feel the light tips of her fingers stroking my face. My mother. She was hushing and cooing, all the while I escaped the unconsciousness and entered the daylight with much regret. My eyelashes fluttered open to see her smiling down at me, with tear drops aligning her eyes. I was hit by the smell of disinfectant, which had been used to muster the ever growing body count in this hell hole which was gradually becoming my home. The walls were bleak and dull. And the heart monitor angled beside my bed, just so I could see the roller coaster of my heart beat, beeped melancholy.

I tried to speak but only managed to groan, signifying I wanted an explanation but my mum told me "the doctor will be here soon" and continually stroked my white dry face with her pink palms. So full of life I thought. My cold cheeks against her warmness was a way of my body signifying; I wasn't getting any better.

Doctor Morris, who insisted I called her Kathy bounced through the door, her blond curly settling against her cheeks and her red face showing obvious signs of concern.

"Oh Daniel!" she said sympathetically.

"Dan" I corrected sheepishly. She ignored my request.

"How are you doing now?" She said in an overly happy tone which was certainly not good for someone with a brain tumour. I grumbled a reply which received a stern look from my mum. I was 19 now. I wasn't in need for some posh tilted blonde, who was merely ten years my senior to treat me patronisingly. However my head was piercing but I didn't want to worry my mum so I replied with "I'm fine".

"Do you remember what happened Daniel?" She said, again ignoring my previous instruction that it was just 'Dan'. So I decided to ignore her "Just call me Kathy".

"No, Doctor Morris" I pulled a tight smile. Okay I was acting like an asshole, but I was lying in a hospital bed right now, morphined up to my eyeballs with no effect. I needed to take my stress out on _something_.

'Kathy' pulled a long face. "It's bad news" she said. _Duh_. I had a brain tumour for a quarter of my life, of course I didn't believe I was cancer free when they said so three months ago. I let go of false hope a long time ago.

"It's back" she said.

"It never left" I replied, staring at the bleak blank canvas of the wall in front of me, the endless bricks, a maze leading to the same spot over and over again. I couldn't help but feel slightly metaphorical, reflecting the canvas with my own life. Bleak, blank and empty. I knew the cancer never left, the days I spent throwing up discreetly in the bathroom and waking up with stabbing pains inside my head, inescapable, were enough to prove I wasn't a 'miracle case'. I just wanted my mum to be happy.

"Unfortunately Daniel, we believed your brain cancer was gone. That was false. Instead it had shrunk to a microscopic size and grew again over time. It developed severely quickly, did you not feel any pain?" Kathy asked concernedly. I gazed at my mothers empathising gaze, the wrinkles on her forehead and the lines around her eyes. I had ruined her.

"No" I coughed. "I was in no pain". That seemed to settle my mum a little and she breathed a sigh of relief and squeezed my fingers reassuringly. I was not reassured.

"Your mother contacted us when you took unwell. Do you remember anything about yesterday Daniel?"

I did. Of course I did. I remembered eating a steak fillet, feeling nauseous but my body insisting I was fine. My head drummed and my little brothers laugh was destroying my brain. Michael McIntyre skipping along the tv in his usual comedic tone. My parents bickering over who finished the wine. All the while, my brain screaming for silence. I eventually just blew a fuse.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP ALL OF YOU JUST SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP!" I raised my hands shakily in to my chocolate brown hair, my finger tips hastily making their way through my roots. I curled up in to a foetal position of my couch as my head reached explosive mode. I could hear my mum calling on me but it was distant and I could hear my brother asking "what the fuck is going on" and to be honest I had no true answer for them. Oh God. I was going to be sick.

I rolled off the couch hastily, stumbling past my family, as they put their hands on me in an attempt of comfort and contact. I pushed them away and staggered towards the bathroom. I realised my fate as I began to gag and sick rose from my throat. I felt it burning. From my gut to my pallet and I began to throw up on to the wooden floor. I gripped for the walls and my dad shot to my side, in an attempt to aid me but I collapsed to the floor inevitably.

"Oh Jesus. He's been sick up blood. Quickly, phone an ambulance!" All the while I was screaming with the whizzing in my head and the burning in the pit of my stomach, all the while my nose dripping a waterfall of red. That was when I blacked out.

"No. I don't remember anything" I gulped back the tension.

"You were sick up blood honey" my mum smiled weakly, holding my cold deadlike hand. I belonged in a morgue. Well at least my withering body did. I sighed defeatedly as my mother wrapped her arms around me and I bit back the tears.

Why was I _still_ living?

* * *

I hope to make this fic long term. It is a Phanfic, I have yet to decide whether it is a romance or a bromance. I will take in all criticism or compliments! Reviews are appreciated hugely. I do not claim to know anything about medicine etc.


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